(If You Scratch My Back) I'll Scratch Yours
by AoiGensou
Summary: There are reasons Yashiro and Hikaru shouldn't drink when they're together. A gift for hostilecrayon for the shipswap exchange.


"You know what I don't understand?" Hikaru asked, his arm waving around in front of him as if gesturing to some grand scene he was seeing. The ice in his glass tinkled brightly, the alcohol sloshing up the sides and almost spilling out. Yashiro elbowed him.

"Careful, you're gonna spill on me," he muttered wiping away beer foam from his upper lip.

"Whatever, I won't. But do you know what I don't understand?" Hikaru repeated insistently. Yashiro rolled his eyes.

"What don't you understand, Shindou?" he echoed, a little patronizing. Hikaru glared at him, but decided that he was feeling too good to start an argument about Yashiro's attitude.

"Handjobs." Downing the rest of his drink, he set the glass on the bar top, and motioned the bartender to bring him another. Yashiro was staring at him as if he had just blasphemed the god of Go or had grown his hair out like Touya's or something. "No, just hear me out."

"You don't understand handjobs," Yashiro repeated, sounding puzzled. "What's not to understand?"

"But like think about it," Hikaru said, poking Yashiro's arm with his forefinger. "It's a hand, it's a dick. You could totally do that for yourself. How is it any different than jerking off?"

Yashiro went quiet, staring at Hikaru for several long seconds, until Hikaru started squirming under his scrutiny. "Yeah, well you can scratch your own back, too. That doesn't mean it feels the same."

Hikaru blinked, considering Yashiro's words. "Dude I totally would argue with you but I can't think of a good argument against that. Huh." Yashiro gave Hikaru a satisfied look, taking another drink of beer. Hikaru twisted his arm behind him to scratch at a spot just above the small of his back, the mental image of back scratching making him itch. He saw Yashiro straighten up in his peripheral vision, and turned to look at him curiously.

"Wait, are you telling me that you've never had a handjob?" Yashiro asked, sounding incredulous. Hikaru looked away, focusing his attention on the bartender making his drink and trying not to look embarrassed. "Dude, you're 20."

"I've been busy!" Hikaru said, his face burning red with the heat of his blush. Without looking at Yashiro, he reached over to punch his arm as the bartender set his new drink down in front of him on a napkin. Hikaru lifted it to his lips and downed half of it in one go.

"Doing what, playing Go?" Yashiro asked, laughing.

"Like you've been doing anything different," Hikaru accused, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced over at Yashiro without turning his head, and saw the grin on his stupid face. "You're such a jerk."

"Hey I may play Go, but at least I've had someone else's hand on my dick," Yashiro said with a smirk that Hikaru wanted to punch. "You're pretty much at the same point we were at when we were fifteen."

"Nuh uh," Hikaru said weakly. "I've totally done stuff."

"Stuff?" Yashiro repeated, still grinning. "What stuff are you talking about?"

"You _know_. Stuff! Like kissing and stuff I guess." Hikaru swirled his drink around in his glass, watching the dim light of the bar reflect off the ice.

"Kissing, huh. Wow Shindou, you're so advanced," Yashiro said dryly. Hikaru turned to glare at him, punching his arm again.

"Shut UP! So you've had some girl touch your dick, big deal," he groused. A weird look crossed Yashiro's face, but disappeared before Hikaru could say anything about it.

"You'd be singin' a different tune if you'd ever gotten past first base," Yashiro pointed out.

"Yeah, whatever. I still say it's not that great. I'm happy with how things are right now," Hikaru muttered to himself, leaning forward to rest his chin on his arms, taking up half the bar top.

Yashiro didn't say anything, thankfully, and Hikaru sighed. The other patrons continued murmuring around them, the conversations unintelligible as anything but white noise. It was soothing, and soon Hikaru found his eyes slipping shut.

"Kissing, huh?" Yashiro said finally, jolting Hikaru out of the warmth of a half-doze. "So who'd you kiss?"

"Nobody, shut up," Hikaru answered in a grouchy voice.

"I bet it was that girl. That childhood friend of yours," Yashiro continued, ignoring Hikaru completely.

"Akari? Ew, no. She's practically my sister!"

"You're protesting pretty hard about it," Yashiro laughed. "So if not her then who?"

Hikaru turned away, making a grouchy sound in the back of his throat. "None of your business," he muttered, sounding tired. He wished Yashiro would just drop it, but he knew how tenacious he could be when he was intent on a goal.

"Man, I don't get you," Yashiro said, taking a long drink of his beer with a deep sigh. "Most guys are eager to brag about the chicks they kiss. But you're acting as though it's some shameful secret. Like you were kissing dudes or something." Hikaru tried not to react, tried to just ignore Yashiro's drunken babbling, but he could feel his face heating up against his will. Yashiro must have noticed, even in the terrible lighting of the bar, since he stopped mid-babble and went absolutely silent. Hikaru could practically feel his eyes boring into the side of his face. "That's it, isn't it?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" Hikaru groused, throwing back the rest of his drink in one go and wishing his stupid best friend would take the hint and just drop the freaking conversation.

"You didn't kiss a girl, did you?" Yashiro asked, sounding much too intent for how drunk the two of them were.

"I told you, I totally kissed someone in-" Hikaru protested, but Yashiro cut him off.

"Yeah but it wasn't a girl. You kissed a guy, didn't you?"

Hikaru squirmed under Yashiro's scrutiny, wondering when the hell he had gotten so perceptive. His face flamed, and he scrambled to think of a way to deny it without sounding guilty.

"No, I..." Hikaru said, his voice breaking in his nervousness.

"You totally did," Yashiro repeated, and Hikaru had to fight the urge to knock him off his stupid barstool. "Did you like it? Who was it? Was he hot?"

"Shut up, asshole," Hikaru growled, hiding his face in his hands. "This isn't funny any more." Yashiro's laughter subsided somewhat, though Hikaru didn't uncover his face immediately.

"Hey," he said, and Hikaru refused to look at him. "I wasn't trying to make fun of you or nothin'." Yashiro chuckled awkwardly, and Hikaru spread his fingers to peek over at him. "Well, I was but I didn't mean any harm."

"Coulda fooled me," Hikaru grumbled. Yashiro reached over to flick his ear, and Hikaru brushed his hand away.

"So tell me about him." Yashiro leaned against the bar, sliding the half-consumed glass of beer between his hands. The liquid sloshed around, but not high enough to escape and spill.

"Why should I?" Hikaru asked sourly.

"'Cause I'm curious," Yashiro answered. Hikaru rolled his eyes. "And if you tell me, then I'll tell you a secret."

Hikaru stared over at Yashiro, his hands slowly falling to rest on the bar top while he tried to assess his friend's sincerity. "Better be a good secret," he finally said in a low voice, looking down at his palms.

"It's good. It's something I've never told anyone," Yashiro assured him. Hikaru scoffed.

"Yeah well if other people knew, then it wouldn't be a secret," he said. Yashiro didn't reply, just waited for Hikaru to say something. With a massive sigh, he finally gave in. "It was a senpai at my middle school."

"Hot," Yashiro said in a dry voice. Hikaru punched his shoulder.

"Do you want to hear this or not?" he grouched, and Yashiro held his hands up in surrender.

"So what's his name?" he asked instead of apologizing. Hikaru glared at him for a few more seconds, before looking away.

"Doesn't matter," he said, running his finger over the shiny surface of the bar top and leaving a dull streak behind.

"Sure it does," Yashiro insisted as Hikaru took his sleeve and wiped at the mark until it was reasonably shiny again. "You've introduced me to most of your middle school friends. I just wanna know if he's someone I know."

"Doesn't matter," Hikaru insisted again, feeling his cheeks light up in embarrassment. Yashiro noticed, and started laughing evilly.

"I _do_ know the guy," he said, poking Hikaru's cheek with his index finger. Hikaru swatted him away. Yashiro was a lot of things, but imperceptive wasn't one of them. Sometimes Hikaru wished that he had made friends with someone less likely to figure out what he was thinking.

It would make their Go less fun, though.

"I never said that," Hikaru protested weakly, considering kicking Yashiro's stool until he fell off of it and to the ground.

"You did," Yashiro asserted confidently. "Maybe not with your words, but you totally did." He grinned. "So who was it, that Go club senpai? That guy on the baseball team? He was kind of hot, if you're into athletic types I guess."

Hikaru groaned. He couldn't believe he was hearing Yashiro comparing the relative hotness of his former classmates in such a matter-of-fact way.

"Kaga, alright?" Hikaru said just to shut him up. "It was Kaga."

"Kaga," Yashiro repeated, his head tilting to the side as he thought. "Red hair, about yea tall, super hot? Biggest Shougi nerd I've ever met?"

"Yeah that's him," Hikaru said, defeated. He let his head drop onto the bar top, the coolness of the lacquered wood helping the blush he was sure would never leave.

"He was really good at hiding the Shougi nerd part," Yashiro mused. "Yeah, not a bad choice."

"You should've seen him in middle school," Hikaru said with a light snort. Yashiro shrugged.

"Take a look at us. We're the biggest Go nerds in the world, so we don't really have room to criticize." Yashiro grinned.

"I guess," Hikaru said, waving dismissively. "Hey, why aren't you freaking out more about this? I've imagined having this conversation about a thousand times with different people and it always ends badly."

"Maybe you underestimate people," Yashiro shrugged.

"Maybe... but I don't think so," Hikaru said. "Liking dudes isn't exactly the fastest route toward social status."

"Like you even care about social status," Yashiro scoffed. "If you did, you'd be some salaryman like your old man."

Hikaru couldn't really argue the point, since Yashiro was right. "But everyone else cares. So having a homo son, being friends with a homo, nobody wants that."

"You gotta stop lumping people together like that," Yashiro said. "Give people a chance, they might surprise you."

"I don't think my heart can take those sorts of surprises," Hikaru muttered.

"Wuss," Yashiro teased. Hikaru ignored him, trying to imagine a world where his parents wouldn't be disappointed in him and his friends wouldn't ostracize him for liking dudes.

"Never gonna happen," he muttered under his breath.

"Yeah whatever," Yashiro teased, and Hikaru frowned at him for having overheard him. "So tell me what it was like."

"Kind of gross," Hikaru said immediately, which made Yashiro choke on laughter.

"Gross? I thought it would be a good experience," he said. Hikaru shrugged.

"Kaga smoked, so it wasn't exactly the best taste in the world," he explained, and Yashiro raised his eyebrows.

"Didn't take you for the kind of guy who would go for the rebel type," he laughed.

"I'm not," Hikaru grumbled. "It was a one-time thing. One time for him and overall."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. "Hey, come here," Yashiro said out of the blue, making a beckoning motion with one hand. Hikaru tilted his head to the side in confusion.

"What? Why?" he asked, pushing against the bottom of the bar and tilting his stool back onto two legs.

"I promised you a secret, didn't I?" Yashiro said in a voice Hikaru took to mean _duh, idiot_. He resisted the urge to stick his tongue out, and dropped his feet off the bar, the stool clattering back onto four legs. He leaned over several inches closer to Yashiro with an exasperated huff.

"Yeah what is it?" Hikaru asked. "It better be good."

"I told you it would be, didn't I?" Yashiro replied. "Now come closer."

Hikaru frowned at his friend, and turned to face him, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees, his face much closer to Yashiro's chest. "Better?"

"No, closer," Yashiro insisted.

"What the hell, do you want me to sit on your lap or somethin'?" Hikaru asked, annoyed. Yashiro smirked.

"Nah, not tonight," he said, making the beckoning motion once more. Hikaru groaned in a longsuffering sort of way and pushed his stool over until it was practically touching Yashiro's. Just to be contrary, he leaned in even closer, his face inches away from Yashiro's.

"How's that?" he asked in his best innocent voice. Yashiro let out a stuttered laugh, and his eyes darted over to the bartender, who was busy with someone at the other end of the bar. Hikaru watched him grab the cocktail menu they had brought over with them from the main section of the restaurant, holding it up near their faces.

"Perfect," Yashiro said in a voice just above a whisper, and the look on his face confused Hikaru for the second it took for Yashiro to close the distance between them.

It didn't register as a kiss, not at first, and Hikaru sat there stunned as Yashiro's lips moved against his. They were surprisingly soft for someone he had seen bite his lips in concentration across the goban countless times. Soft, and warm. When Hikaru's brain caught up with his lips, he made a muffled noise of surprise, and brought a hand up to Yashiro's shoulder. Whether it was to push him away or pull him closer, he wasn't quite sure. The decision was made for him when Yashiro slowly ended the kiss, pulling back just enough that their lips separated with a soft sound. His cheeks were red, and his eyes kept darting back toward the bartender to make sure they hadn't been noticed.

"What the hell was that?" Hikaru hissed, caught between angry, confused and aroused. He could taste the beer that lingered on Yashiro's lips when his tongue darted out to wet them. "That wasn't a secret! That wasn't even discreet!"

Yashiro scoffed. "You don't get to lecture me about discretion, Mr. I-am-the-least-discreet-person-in-the-world."

"Shut up, at least I don't go around kissing people in public," Hikaru shot back. "You owe me a secret, and you can't distract me with kisses." He felt himself getting mad, wondering if Yashiro was taking advantage of the fact that he was gay, if he was making fun of him and using it against him.

"Calm down," Yashiro said with a sigh and a half-smile. "The secret is that I've wanted to do that for years."

Hikaru stared at him, his heart stuttering at the proclamation. He wasn't sure what to say to that. "Really?" he asked, his voice squeaking slightly.

Yashiro laughed, his lips turned up in a grin. "Really."

"Oh. Awesome," Hikaru said dumbly, wondering if he could be any more of a dork. Yashiro's chuckles subsided, and Hikaru turned his eyes away from him to look anywhere else.

"Hey," Yashiro said, drawing Hikaru's attention reluctantly, "want to get out of here and let me teach you the difference between scratching your own back and someone else doing it for you?"

Hikaru felt his stomach lurch pleasantly, heat rushing to his face and spreading down to his neck. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry in a way that even the kiss hadn't managed. Clearing his throat, he took a chance and looked Yashiro in the eye. After all, he was never one to back down from a challenge.

"Yeah, okay."

Yashiro grabbed his hand and stood up from his stool, tugging Hikaru along with him. He didn't know if this was a good idea, not with how much the two of them had had to drink. But he couldn't deny the excitement he felt at the unknown prospects the future held.


End file.
